My weekend in Rome

Il Vaticano e Il Mercato di Porta Portese

Loads has happened since the last update, so brace yourselves for a long winded report.

On Friday, while most of the group went on their trips, a few of us went to the beach!! It was lovely and despite the annoying people shoving crap in our faces and demanding we buy it, I think we all had a lot of fun. I even got my first sunburn of the summer, which has already receded into a tan.

 Poor Emily, however, ended up getting very sick and had to miss her trip to Venice, but hopefully she’ll be fully recovered for when we all go to Matera this weekend.

I held off on talking about going to see St. Peter’s with Jack, because I was waiting until I also went to the rest of the Vatican museums and saw le stanze di Rafaello and, of course, the beautiful Sistine Chapel.

Jack and I had already run through the beautiful Basilica earlier in the week. It was over the top and ridiculous and slightly overwhelming and pretty much totally awesome. As expected.

On Saturday Austin and I adventured through the Vatican, which was a lot of fun besides the hoards of tourists. On a side note, you should totally go through the Vatican with someone who studies roman history and someone who’s obsessed with art history, because I feel like between the two of us we could have trumped most guided tours. I absolutely loved looking at all of the amazing art, though we didn’t even make it through like half of the museums (unfortunate)…

Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s amazing frescoes were well worth the cover price (which was only €8 instead of €15 with the international student card btw). I may or may not have illegally taken pictures of the Sistine ceiling…. Art should be public regardless.

I am excited to upload the pictures from this trip. There aren’t many, but they get the point across well enough.

I know you probably are disappointed that I haven’t been taking the standard excessive amount of pictures during my trip, but not only am I laboring under the assumption that I’ll be able to snag most stuff that I’m missing from my fellow classmates, but also I feel dumb photographing things that have been photographed 80 bajillion times and can easily be found in a million different versions on Google image searches; so instead I’m just going to continue enjoying actually being here and not looking at these wonderful things through a lens.

This morning I went to the epic and fantastic Marcato di Porta Portese, which was way cooler than any one had made it out to be. As someone far more enamored with old things than new ones, I can tell you had I not pre-emptively limited myself to a budget and still continuously reminded myself that I would have to figure out how to tote these purchases around Germany and then back to the states, I would have bought so many awesome that I woulda been broke by then end of it all. Maybe in two weeks I’ll be able to go back and find something shiny for my mom, and maybe even settle on something special for myself as well.

I’ve been very picky about my purchases up to this point mostly because I only want things that I know I’ll keep for a long time. I’d rather come home with only a few things that I really love but might have spent more on than a million frivolous things that will be out of style in a year or two {glances at leather jacket and little painting from Florence}…

I did find my wonderful spaghetti western comics 6 for €3 and a cute dress. Wooh!

I have to mention the very sweet man that I had a short but very memorable conversation with. I had asked how much a skirt was off handedly (in Italian) more out of curiosity than interest and this somehow evolved into a conversation about where I was from. He was obviously an immigrant into Italy (judging by his ethnicity and accent I’d say he was from somewhere in North Africa). When I told him “Texas” he said he didn’t know where this was so I explained that it was in the southern US. His response was that he wished he could go to America, but that he could not because it was too difficult. I think what struck me was more the way he looked at me than the way he said it, but I knew that what he meant by “difficult” was “impossible” and it broke my heart. I’ve gotten many an odd look in my life, but this was the first time anyone has genuinely looked at me with envy. I told him that I was sorry for his difficulty and wished him luck before I left. I only get a little solace from the fact that Rome is probably much better off than where he came from.

When I got home my host mom had her granddaughter here! And incase you were wondering, even the babies are cuter in Italy. Julia is precious and only 1 year 6 months (and already knows more Italian than me). It was so sweet how she took to me though. When I would leave the room you could hear the little reppetitions of “ssandra! ssandra!” which of course is her cute little way of saying “Alessandra.” She also was very sure to test my vocabulary of household things by pointing to things until I would say what it is; {tiny finger pointing to the light “Che è quella, Julia? È la luce?”… happy baby face). It was really cute seeing how Italian nonne dote on their little bambini. I eventually met Angela’s son (Julia’s dad) and her older granddaughter (who’s name is also Alessandra). She has such a beautiful family. And I totally mean that literally, they are very good looking people this family.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this week. I have big plans to go see some modern and contemporary art before the trip to Matera!

A presto!